Aitutaki
Interesting facts
- Aitutaki was the only island in the Cook Islands to be formally annexed by Britain in 1900 rather than ceded by its chiefs.
- Basalt adze heads found on the island were traced to quarries in Samoa and the Society Islands, evidence of long-distance Polynesian voyaging.
- Polynesians are thought to have first settled Aitutaki between about AD 1225 and 1430; the island was traditionally also known as Araura and Utataki.
- The barrier reef forms a near-equilateral triangle with sides of about 12 km, its southern edge lying almost entirely beneath the sea.
- Only two of the fifteen motu around the lagoon are volcanic; all the others are built of coral.
- Aitutaki was the first island in the Cook Islands to adopt Christianity, after the London Missionary Society's John Williams called in 1821.
- The wartime airstrips were finished on 14 November 1942, and the first aircraft to land was an American light bomber eight days later.
- The flying boat Aranui, which served TEAL's Coral Route through the lagoon until 1960, is preserved at the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland.
- In 2020 the island was linked to the Manatua submarine fibre cable, making it one of the smallest fibre-connected islands in the world.
- The main island is an Important Bird Area thanks to its population of the blue lorikeet, a small, vividly coloured parrot.
Why it is worth it
Aitutaki is the Cook Islands' postcard: a small volcanic island at the tip of a triangular barrier reef, with a turquoise lagoon of 50 km² or more and fifteen islets, or motu, strung around its rim. Geographers call it an "almost atoll", because the reef encloses the lagoon on all sides while a hill, Maunga Pu, still rises 123 m above the main island. Around 1,800 people live here, most in and around Arutanga on the west coast.
The lagoon cruise is the reason to come. Boats run across to Tapuaetai, better known as One Foot Island, in the southeast of the lagoon, where a sandbar stretches out at low tide and the views across the shallows are the best on the atoll. It is the most popular trip on the island, and other motu along the eastern rim, such as Akaiami and Tekopua, are visited on the same cruises. Akaiami has its own story: in the 1950s TEAL flying boats on the famous Coral Route landed in the lagoon and passengers rested on the islet while the planes refuelled; the old jetty still stands.
On the main island, Arutanga has the oldest church in the country, built for the Cook Islands Christian Church by two Polynesian teachers left here by the missionary John Williams after he arrived in 1821. Captain Bligh called at Aitutaki in April 1789, weeks before the mutiny on the Bounty, and US and New Zealand forces built the airstrip in 1942. A climb up Maunga Pu gives the full view of reef and lagoon.
Getting there
Aitutaki Airport (AIT), near the northern tip of the island, has Air Rarotonga flights from Rarotonga, where Rarotonga International Airport (RAR), about 260 km to the south, is the Cook Islands' international gateway. Boats also use the passage through the reef to the anchorage at Arutanga.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Aitutaki, also traditionally known as Araʻura and Utataki, is the second most-populated island in the Cook Islands, after Rarotonga. It is an "almost atoll", with fifteen islets in a lagoon adjacent to the main island. Total land area is 18.05 km2 (6.97 sq mi), and the lagoon has an area of between 50 and 74 km2. A major tourist destination, Aitutaki is the second most visited island of the Cook Islands archipelago.
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